Hello and thanks for stopping by! My name is Angela. I am a scientist, wife, cat-mom, and fitness enthusiast. This page is my personal blog, and you will find a range of topics, centered around healthy living. Why “The Chicken Scoop”? Well, when I started this blog, we had just gotten a small flock of chickens and the name just stuck! I hope you enjoy your visit!

The Playground

I have been super busy lately! First, good news is that I have been hitting the gym a lot lately. I went to Zumba twice because a friend was teaching, and Rob and I have been playing in the “CrossFit” room at the gym.

My Playground

I love this room and it is luckily at the gym location closest to my house. We can use it any time there isn’t a paying class in there. They have a wide range of toys, even a “warm up” or “lady’s” barbell – 22lbs instead of 45 – which is great for me when I want to do upper body stuff. It also lets me use the bumped plates so I don’t have to bend over as far for things like deadlifts. No clue what I’m talking about? It’s okay. I’ll post about lifting one of these days… Anyway! So lots of fun toys and I get to hang out with Rob. Win-win! Rob also just showed me the boxing room which I did not know existed. I have gloves in the attic but minimal experience with boxing. Maybe I can find some fun workouts on Pinterest??

So on to the rest of the weekend. There was lots of homework but who wants to see pictures of that… Rob also worked on his indoor garden a bit. Our crock pot cracked so he is using it to grow tulips! We also have potted roses, freesia, some more tulips, and some boring ferns/greenery.

Purple, Black, and Blue Tulips. We’re so Goth.

We spend every weekend food prepping like crazy since I’m not home all week. This semester is a lot easier than last Fall because I get home before dinner on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, making it one less meal to pack each of those days. It is nice to have a fresh cooked dinner mid week and not leftovers again and again.

Rob loves to crinkle cut everything, even the celery!

This week, I have a ton of school work – research, reading, 2 homeworks, and 2 exams. Oh the joy. Of course, before I knew all this was happening, I also planned to have 2 Arbonne parties at my place this weekend. Not one, but TWO. I figured this would give more people a chance to make it and more opportunities for me to practice my presentation. I’ll be experimenting with making protein bites with the Arbonne protein powder for the party so I’ll post the recipe if is works out. I got some ideas from the internet already that I’m excited to try!

How about we end with a kitty photo? Remember when I used to post one of Spooky every week? This is her “touch my stomach and you will lose a hand” pose. She’s so sweet.

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7 comments to The Playground

I’ve never seen radishes in soup but it’s beautiful! We either sauté (with meat renderings and other veg) or eat raw — we also almost never get enough beautiful ones at once to amount to much, maybe 1C but that’s great in a soup.

I don’t actually do CrossFit. I don’t follow their workouts as I don’t like how they are designed (too many reps usually and a lot of “boxes” seem to have bad form too). I do use the room a lot though to do my own thing. The other day was box jumps, clean & presses, walking lunges, kettlebell swings, and a few other things I can’t remember. Rob and I also threw around a medicine ball for a while which was fun!

When you come visit and come to my gym we’ll do it, Kristen! I’ve been doing my deadlifts at the end of class and we used the plyo boxes from Anglea’s picture yesterday and today in class!
That soup looks so yummy! And I can’t wait to hear about the protein bites. My trainer’s girlfriend made him protein cookies for valentine’s day…I’m sure there was flour in them, but I’d love to have her recipe and then tweek it to paleo! I’ll have to see if I can get him to get it….hmmm..

I found two recipes. One no-bake (think similar to Larabars with dates) and baked ones that I will switch out the flour or almond meal or coconut flour (or a mixture). Haven’t decided yet. The baked ones were like brownies so I’m leaning that way 🙂